St. Marks Evangelical Lutheran Church​

 “We can ignore even pleasure. But pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”

– C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain

 

Greetings Friends,

• What food is unhealthy?

• How do we interpret dreams?

• What universally agreed upon cultural values do we disregard?

• How do leaders lead?

• How do we pray with integrity?

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These questions come from the stories in the first six chapters of Daniel. The two most familiar stories are Shadrach, Meshach and Abendego being thrown into the fiery furnace for not worshiping the Golden Statue. Another story often told to children is when Daniel was thrown into the lion’s den for praying to his God and not to the king.  But these six Daniel stories are less children’s stories and more about coping with life after losing it all, about being faithful to God when all religious supports have been destroyed, about doing your best in difficult circumstances, and about asking the big questions.

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Big questions come when everything goes wrong. When what we thought was true proves to be a lie, when what we thought could never fail fails, or when we give our all and it is not enough; these can be our best, most necessary and instructive experiences. We question everything. We seek help beyond ourselves. We discover what is really true and good and life-giving, and what is not.

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One of the biggest challenges about living in the United States at this time in history is that so much is going so well for most of us. We daily receive luxuries that in centuries past not even kings could demand…to eat fresh fruit in every season, to fly across continents, to talk face to face to anyone anywhere in the world, to be truly warm in winter and cool in summer, and to have sight restored, crippled limbs straightened, and epidemics halted. We expect such things and take them for granted, only infrequently being reminded that what is true for us is not true for all.

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Daniel is one of those who helps remind us. He and his companions experienced life not from the top down but from the bottom up. Perhaps these stories can help us to reverse our way of looking at the world. Or, maybe, we just need to pay attention to our own stories when they are bottom-up instead of top-down stories.  

After all, our teacher and master came to experience life from the bottom up and to show us how to live likewise.

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Peace be with you all,        

Pastor Doug